a blog by jason berberich

I’ve been using WordPress to create client websites for over five years now. In that time, everything has changed. Multiple times. Everything’s amazing, but web development has gotten more complex, not less. The depth of knowledge required to use the HTML/CSS/JavaScript stack is staggering, and the abundance of tools created to make it easier has just added another layer of “things you need to know”. And that’s completely ignoring which tooling you should choose in the first place.

Still, I’d take today’s development environment any day.

I did a little reminiscing and came up with a few major phases in my years creating WordPress themes for customers.

When word came yesterday morning that Marco had released his new iPhone podcast client, Overcast, I downloaded it immediately. I even paid the $5 to unlock all of the features, if only to show my support for him and his work. So far, there’s a lot to like. But, as a podcast listener with over 50 show subscriptions, there are a few things missing that will keep me from using it for all of my podcasts.

I’m no stranger to personal finance software. Hell — I’ve written about most of my experiences with them here on this blog. Moneydance, Mvelopes, Wesabe, and most recently, Mint, all helped keep track of my family’s finances for varying lengths of time and differing degrees of success.

Mint turned out to be an interesting case. Its homepage promises that “Mint does all the work of organizing and categorizing your spending for you.” Which is true, really. Log in, and it automatically fetches the latest transactions to give you up-to-date balances for all of your accounts.

So for over five years, I dutifully logged in every day, checked my balances, and split and corrected any transactions that required it. But the question it took me too long to ask myself was: Does using Mint change the way Casey and I spend our money?

Amazon announced and released the Amazon Fire TV set top box yesterday. Its technical specs looks impressive, and it’s priced right, but there’s not enough of difference to make me want to switch from our Roku 3 yet. It’s definitely worth a look if you don’t have a streaming box, though.

I came across this earlier today on The Verge and immediately recognized its potential. Called Moov, it’s a wearable fitness coach that works with your phone to provide real-time feedback while exercising. It looks very cool.

Casey and I did the Whole30 nutrition challenge program together from August 1st through today, and it was an interesting experience. While I was a bit reluctant in the beginning, I'm happy we did it. In fact, it's likely something we're going to do at least once a year in the future.